


Cold

by nice_girls_play



Category: The Young Ones (TV 1982)
Genre: Character Study, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 14:19:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4963984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nice_girls_play/pseuds/nice_girls_play
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why Vyvyan Basterd doesn't wear a coat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on FF.net and at the [Young Ones Slash LJ community](http://tyo-slash.livejournal.com) in 2007.

Vyvyan Basterd doesn't feel cold. Minus five degrees Celsius outside, the night bus is ten minutes late and he's the only one of four people waiting under the overhang at the stop not wearing a coat. While his house mates angle toward the corners of the bus stop and burrow their hands further inside their pockets -- consumed with retaining warmth -- he keeps himself entertained by watching the cars tear past them on the road and daydreaming about pile-ups.

The last winter coat he remembers owning was when he was five years old: a short navy wool number with missing buttons. His mum used it to mop up the puke and piss that stained the floor of their flat after a night in with one of her boyfriends. He couldn't recall another after that one -- he'd most likely been deemed unworthy of the three quid it would cost at the charity shops.

Rick slides next to him on the bench swathed in his tweed overcoat, scarf, and finger-less gloves, all wrapped up and still shivering. Like the prissy bastards at school who'd looked down on Vyvyan because his hair was never washed. Because his uniform was bought second-hand and frayed in places. Because his mum sent his tuition in weekly parcels of pooled stolen pence pieces and crumpled fivers, for the sole purpose of keeping her young son as far away from her as possible for as long as possible. A few years later, those pence pieces were replaced by cheques from the Department for Education and, sometimes, his case worker's pocketbook. It was easier to keep paying for a ward of the state to stay in school over the holidays than it was to find a foster family that could handle ten-year-old Vyvyan and his volatile misuse of his chemistry set; twelve-year-old Vyvyan and his affection for explosives; fifteen-year-old Vyvyan and his spiked hair and body piercings.

Typical that in all the cash that had been exchanged in his name over the years, no one had ever gotten around to buying him a proper coat. Now, he didn't need one. He'd adapted. There was probably some explanation for the phenomenon buried in one of his medical textbooks. Vyvyan doesn't feel cold, because he's _always_ cold. He sleeps in his clothes and boots and drinks enough lager to lay out a small army, but he can never manage to get warm. And it's been going on for so long now, he barely notices.

"Aren't you cold at all, Vyvyan?"

He looks over at the sociology student, arms wrapped around himself and practically bouncing on the bench. Normally pale and sallow, Rick's cheeks are blush pink with cold, his lips almost purple.

"No," he replies, turning his gaze down to the sidewalk, poking at a crumpled sandwich wrapper with his boot. Minutes later, he glances over and finds a pair of blue eyes still staring at him, incredulous.

"What?"

"Well, I was just wondering don't you ever get cold? I mean, I don't even think I've ever seen you wear long--" the long fingers brushing his arm just below the sleeve of his t-shirt is startling. The tingle it sends up his shoulder and neck is disturbing. The pulse that swims through his brain at the sensation is enough to make him reach over and cuff the back of Rick's head. Hard. The current passes from his knuckles to his house mate's skull, staggering him and knocking him to the pavement

"I'm fine, Rick," he blurts out, staring down at his pole-axed housemate.

"All right," the trembling anarchist finally says, climbing back on to the bench several inches away from his housemate. Apart from sucking his bottom lip between his teeth, he seems relatively calm now, unaffected by the bitter cold that surrounds them. Unlike Vyvyan who is now hyper-aware of both the cold and the warm body next to him. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck are poker-straight; every nerve ending sputtering to life. Seventeen years of physical adaptation to environment gone to shit.

Bugger wasn't satisfied until he'd ruined everything, was he? Sneering, Vyvyan kicks the wrapper into the path of a passing car.

Where the fuck's he supposed to get three quid for a bloody coat?


End file.
